


Mightier Than The Sword

by palimpsestus



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Books are Important, F/M, Foster kids, Gen, Mentions of past self harm, alternative universe, au: authors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 07:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11686896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palimpsestus/pseuds/palimpsestus
Summary: Since finishing the newest 'Detective Dog' book, Angharad has been stewing. Why would Detective Dog leave all his friends behind? When she spots her favourite author, lurking between the shelves of her favourite bookshop, she takes matters into her own hands. Max Rockatansky doesn't know what's hit him.





	Mightier Than The Sword

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Owlship](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Pen to Paper](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4914340) by [Owlship](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship). 



> The original fic's summary was: “you’re an author of children books and my kid is in love with everything you’ve written so when you come into town for a reading I thought it’d be fun to take my kid to hear you. only you are not at all what I expected and for a moment i’m worried that we’re not at the right place, but then you start reading with animated eyes and an engagingly kind voice and aha, ha ha oh no. I’m so fucked" au

“Detective Dog wouldn’t do that.”

Max didn’t dare take his eyes off the small, gold haloed demon in front of him, but he did allow the periphery of his vision to seek out her keeper. The girl was older than most of his readers, on the cusp of wanting to walk away from childish detective stories. The age that would see him reading in the corner of the bookshop, surrounded by eager-eyed, cross-legged kids and would deliberately walk away. He knew _why_ it happened, but never quite liked it.

The little Valkyrie had pinned him between two narrow bookcases, a wall at his back, and was standing with her arms loosely held by her side. She was positively bristling with rage, her eyes flashing as she waited for his explanation.

“Detective Dog is good,” the girl continued when he came up with no answer. “Detective Dog understands that the rules are important. He would never go against his Captain.”

Ah, an opening. Max rocked back on his heels a little. “Do you think his Captain was right?”

The little girl hesitated a moment, her rounded lips turning downwards. “His Captain gave him an order,” she continued, masking her hesitation with more bravado.

“But do you think that was a _good_ order?” Max said, keeping his voice level. “If you were Detective Dog, what would you have done?”

The girl drew breath to continue arguing and then stopped, her jaw clacking shut as she thought this through. Max noticed silvery scars on her forearm, paler than the rest of her skin, not at all hidden by the sleeveless sundress she was wearing.

Into the new silence, Max asked, “Did you have someone with you today?”

The girl threw an angry look in his direction and then, without taking her eyes off him, she called, “Furiosa?”

Only a few moments later, a strikingly tall woman rounded the corner of the shelving, moving with a speed that suggested she’d been looking for her missing charge. She had another girl in her arms, this one much younger, although Max had the impression she was perhaps smaller than her age would merit. A further three girls of various ages trotted along behind, each one different from the last.

“Everything okay, Angharad?” the woman, Furiosa, asked with a measured calm that was intended to deliver a firm message to anyone listening in. Angharad’s word would be listened to first. Max had no intention of speaking over her.

“Mum,” said one of the younger girls, putting her hand on Furiosa’s thigh, “That’s Max Rockatansky.”

Furiosa’s brow furrowed at this, not placing the significance of his name maybe.

“Everything’s fine,” Angharad said with an impatient wave of her hand. “I was just asking Max why Detective Dog ran away from Dogcadia in _Ruff Road_.”

The simplistic words, spoken with a child’s impassioned earnestness, usually grated on adult ears. Max steeled himself for Furiosa’s grimace or dismissal, but instead, Furiosa turned her attention to him. “I’m sorry if you were caught off guard. We’ve been discussing this since _Ruff Road_ came out. And we’re no nearer a consensus.”

“What’s a consensus?” asked the little blonde girl behind Furiosa’s legs.

The red haired one replied, “it’s when we all agree.”

Max suppressed a smile, and turned his attention back to Angharad. “Sometimes a good book makes you think about what’s right and what’s wrong,” he said to her. “It’s good to talk to your-” he wanted to say ‘sisters’, but the girls were clearly not related, “friends and family about these things.” With this, he nodded to Furiosa, and sidled past the troupe to make his escape into the fresh air.

 

Dog was waiting for him in the Interceptor, his ears cocked as Max strode across the nearly abandoned tarmac. Something in Max’s countenance encouraged Dog to leap through the open window and bound towards him, tail whipping from side to side as he sauntered over. Max crouched to fondle Dog’s ears and rub his neck, which made Dog’s tongue loll from the side of his grinning mouth, eyes closing in simple bliss.

This little bookstore by the sea was one of his favourites. It was far enough from Darwin to discourage too many people coming to hear him read, but still close enough to civilisation that it could keep itself running. Along the seaside road, a spate of little houses and shops had chosen to cluster here, a diner, a gas station, a surf shop, a grocery store, and the bookshop of course. Perhaps once this had been a reasonable place for civilisation to arise, a good place to stop for fuel before driving across the Northern Territories. Now it made its living with tourists and suburban families.

Max gazed out at the sea, the white crests of the waves and the blurred line between the blue of the sky and the blue of the ocean.

With a final scrub at Dog’s neck, Max straightened and strode toward the car. Blasting out onto the road felt like a good way to ease the tension from his shoulders. The young woman flashed in front of his eyes for a moment, challenging him.

He never wrote a story without reason, and _Ruff Road_ was no exception. Kids, he firmly believed, needed a space to try on adult feelings and beliefs to help them move into the adult world. Still, he knew some children moved into that world far too quickly. The sight of the girl’s silvery scars had tickled at some very specific memories, his brain offering up a protocol for how to deal with her before he had even identified what the self-harm marks might have been. Even she had to learn that not all worlds could be perfect.

He just wished it hadn’t been his books that had taught her that lesson.

Furiosa, Angharad and the gaggle were exiting the book shop now, each girl with a bag of treasures. They had parked closer to the shop, out of the shade of the bushes, and were piling into a large SUV. Furiosa was leaning into the open door to put the littlest one in a car seat, the girl who had called her ‘mum’ was talking away animatedly, describing the book she held in her hands. Angharad, however, was watching him. While he sometimes did readings at this bookshop, his visit today was simply to pick up the latest Charles Stross, on pre-order and already fully dissected on the internet. Books seemed to take a long time to cross the continent. The girl had seen him, and identified him, all by herself. The recognition was discomforting.

When Furiosa straightened up, Max realised she was wearing a prosthetic arm. It had been hidden by the girl she’d been carrying. It looked expensive, the chrome join at her shoulder sitting snugly. He wondered, absently, what kind of force it could withstand, and then shook his head to clear it from these thoughts of a man who no longer truly existed. Max the cop was dead.

Feeling as though he’d been caught staring, Max turned the ignition, anticipating the harsh roar of engines . . . and he stared at the dash, while Dog stared at him, as the Interceptor remained stoically silent.

Damn.

He gave the ignition another, hopeful, try. Still nothing. Dog whined and rested his nose on Max’s knee. “Stay,” Max said, pushing the driver door open and swinging out from the Interceptor’s low carriage. Outside, he could hear the indistinct sounds of the girl’s chatter. Popping the bonnet, he bowed his head over the machinery, and felt the sun beating on the back of his neck.

He heard the footsteps and turned his head enough to clock Furiosa approach. She had stowed her charges in the SUV, and they were pressed up against the windows watching them. Furiosa was tall, clad in pale stonewash jeans and a cream tank, the strap of which lay on the join of her shoulder to her prosthetic. She glanced at the engine and stopped outside of his reach. “Do you need a jumpstart?” she asked, and then shrugged her right shoulder, “least I could do, given my girls attacked you earlier,” she added, with a ghost of a smile on her lips.

Max shook his head. “I think it’s the electrics. They go every so often.”

Furiosa gestured to the engine, “Can I take a look? I’m a mechanic.”

Max stepped back to allow her access. He watched the girls in the van from the corner of his eye as Furiosa bowed over the engine, reaching in to check a few things. She seemed to know what she was doing, tossing some of the short blonde curls back from her face as she inspected the machinery. Through the windscreen, Dog was watching with pricked ears.

“I think you’re right,” she announced, straightening up and tugging a wet-wipe from her back pocket to wipe the grease from her fingers.

“It’s okay, I’m covered,” he said.

He reached into the passenger side of the car for his phone, letting Dog lick his wrist, while Furiosa closed the bonnet and looked back at her SUV. She waited while he phoned, and when he’d finished, she folded her arms. “How long?”

“They think it’ll be an hour or so.”

Furiosa nodded. “Can I drop you at the diner to wait? I feel like I owe you.”

He had the impression that Furiosa did not enjoy owing others at all. Nor did he. But it was an hour’s wait in the midday sun. While the breeze from the sea and the open window was enough to keep Dog cool for a quick ten-minute visit to the bookstore in the morning, it would quickly get too warm for both of them waiting in the car. The walk to the diner was along twenty minutes of burning hot tarmac that wouldn’t be kind on Dog’s paws either. He glanced at Dog again, and Furiosa quickly assured him the dog would be welcome too, so he grabbed his few belongings from the car, shoved wallet and phone into his pocket, and followed Furiosa back to the SUV. Dog stuck by his heel, tail wagging frantically.

“The girls will be excited,” Furiosa warned as they reached the car.

He nodded.

The air conditioning in the SUV was very welcome as he lowered himself into the passenger seat, keeping his ankles spread apart so Dog could curl up in the footwell.

Angharad and the red-haired girl were sitting on either side of the youngest girl in the middle row of seats, while the one that bore the strongest resemblance to Furiosa was leaning forward. “Hey!” she said brightly as Furiosa turned the engine over and began pulling out of the space. “Is your car broken?”

“The electrics,” Furiosa said on his behalf, watching the girls in the rearview mirror. “We’re going to drop Max off at the diner so he can wait for recovery somewhere comfortable.”

“Cool,” said the girl. She waved to Max’s reflection in the mirror. “My name’s Toast. This is Dag, this is Capable, the wee one is Cheedo. I think you know Angharad.”

Max met the gaze of the scarred girl and he nodded. “We’ve met,” he agreed.

Toast grinned and settled back in her seat, her seatbelt snapping back with the clunk of a well-used mechanism. Furiosa was watching him from the corner of her gaze and he allowed a little smile to show. These were nice kids.

The diner was technically outside of the town, and they pulled in just after the sign that announced they were entering Citadel. “Can we have milkshakes?” Cheedo asked as they parked, and although Furiosa drew breath to argue, the other girls were piling out of the car, using superior numbers to thwart Furiosa’s attempts to reign them in. Only Cheedo, fastened in her seat, remained inside while Max and Furiosa sat a handspan apart from one another. “Sorry,” Furiosa said, her eyes half closing.

Max shook his head and opened the door. Dog bounded out to chase the girls, and was immediately fondly greeted by Dag, who started a game of tag across the strip of grass between the diner and the parking lot.

“I foster,” Furiosa was saying, helping Cheedo out from her chair and letting her down in the empty lot to toddle after the others. “Some of these girls haven’t had the best past. They like to show their independence.”

Max was nodding.

“Your books mean a lot to Angharad, I hope she wasn’t too harsh.”

“I understand,” Max assured her.

“Come on,” Furiosa nodded to the diner. “Let me buy you a coffee.”

While Max couldn’t say he often found himself in this kind of situation, he knew his typical reaction would have been to make an excuse, take Dog, and run as far as he could. The odd, systematic patterns of the silver scars on Angharad stopped him. She was watching him and Furiosa even as she stood with the other girls and Dog. Her bright, indignant anger was still burning. The hideousness of the unfair real world, encroaching on her precious fictional world, still stung her into fury, although she was trying to hide it. So he followed meekly on Furiosa’s heel. He knew the emotions that Angharad’s rage evoked in him. They were hardly forgotten or buried, just . . . old. Rarely used.

Rarely examined.

He had popped into the diner once or twice, and knew the old woman who usually worked behind the counter. She seemed to recognise Furiosa and the girls suddenly pelted past the two adults, crowding into a booth near the back at a window, Dog chasing after them.

The woman behind the counter only raised her eyebrows and Furiosa shrugged. “Another stray?” asked the woman, giving Max a particularly knowing smile that made his skin prickle in another vague memory of what it was like to be around other people. He kept his head down and sat beside Furiosa in the booth, Cheedo between Furiosa and the window. Opposite them, Dag, Capable, Toast and Angharad piled in and began studying a menu between them. Except Angharad was watching him through lowered lashes.

“You want to ask about _Ruff Road_?” he asked quietly.

Angharad cast a quick look at Furiosa who was resolutely pointing out items on the menu to Cheedo, and then nodded.

“On you go,” Max said.

She sat back against the red pleather-cushioned bench and bit her bottom lip, thinking carefully about what she wanted to say. “I don’t think Detective Dog should have disobeyed his Captain,” she said deliberately. “He should have talked to the Captain and shown him it was important to find Cassie with the Captain’s help. With _everyone’s_ help.”

The owner approached them with a little pad and a pencil gripped in her hands. “What can we get you today, ladies?”

The girls rhymed off tailored milkshake orders, while Furiosa prompted Cheedo to ask for a strawberry shake. With the girls sorted, and Dog snug beneath the table licking Dag’s fingers, Furiosa turned a smile on the diner owner and said, “And one black coffee, please, Miss Giddy.”

“Two,” Max said.

Miss Giddy winked and headed back to the counter, passing on the order to another woman through the hatch, who said something to make Miss Giddy laugh.

Max turned his attention back to Angharad. “Didn’t Dog try to tell the Captain?”

“Yes, but . . .” Angharad trailed off unhappily.

“Cassie needed help, didn’t she?” Furiosa said quietly.

“And the Captain was useless,” Toast added, getting elbowed very sharply in the ribs by Capable. She mouthed ‘what’ and scowled at her sister, subsiding.

Angharad raised her gaze to Max’s again. “But that was _your_ choice. Why did you make Captain useless? Couldn’t he have been good too? Why did he have to be bad?”

Max let his gaze drop to his hands, clasped on the pebble-dash Formica table. “Do you know how I got the idea for the books?”

Angharad shook her head, and seemingly determined to prove she knew, Toast piped up again, “Yes, you used to be a police officer!” She wriggled away from Capable pre-emptively.

“That’s right,” Max agreed. “And . . . something very sad happened. A little boy got hurt. And just like Detective Dog, I couldn’t do anything about it as a police officer.”

It was easier, almost tolerable, to talk about it as though it had happened to someone else. To the kind of person who ran through vulnerable child protocols when they saw scars on a girl’s arm, to the kind of person who went for coffee and accepted rides from strangers. The kind of person who wasn’t so afraid.

Angharad was watching him. The sun streaming in the windows shone gold on her hair, and made the scars difficult to see. She nodded a little, and ducked her head.

“Sometimes life can be hard, can’t it?” Furiosa said into the silence, her words dropping like a pebble into a still pond, the ripples radiating across the table as the girls looked at one another, nodding in agreement.

“But there should be rules,” Angharad said softly. “There should be things that are true.”

Miss Giddy and her companion returned with a tray each, gigantic, colourful milkshakes that they handed out to each girl, and two plain black coffees planted in front of Max and Furiosa.

Max waited for them to leave, noted the way Angharad was twirling her straw around the yellow mix in her frosted glass. “Have you ever heard of fan fiction?”

“Huh?”

He could see Furiosa smile, and a little knot of tension in his chest eased. “You’d have to ask Furiosa more, maybe she could show you some, but some people write stories about stories.”

“Why?” Toast asked flatly, slurping down her cherry concoction so quickly Max could feel his own arteries constrict in sympathy.

“Because sometimes they don’t like what’s happened, or because there’s something different that could have happened, or sometimes just because they liked to. Angharad could write a story where Detective Dog convinces the Captain to look for Cassie.” Max sipped his coffee while Angharad thought about this. “And maybe you girls could read it when she’s done?”

“I like the sound of that,” Furiosa said beside him. She took a drink of her own coffee. “We could all write something and have a reading.”

Angharad looked between them with narrowed eyes, and then she fixed on Max. “And you’d come for the reading?” she asked.

“Well . . .”

“Max would be very welcome to, if he wasn’t busy,” Furiosa said smoothly.

“I think I’d like that,” Max said.

And Angharad studied both of them for a heartbeat before she nodded, leaving Max with the strange feeling that he had been outmanoeuvred. “Good,” she said decidedly, and fastened her lips around her straw.

Furiosa glanced at him, raising an eyebrow, and he half shrugged back. “What are you going to write?” he asked, and her nose wrinkled as she laughed.

He thought he liked that too.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't write a lot of AUs, so this was a lot of fun and definitely something a bit different. Thanks very much to Owlship for inviting me into their sandbox, I hope this was fun for you too! :)


End file.
